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The Serviceberry

Review by mónica teresa ortiz

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World is the latest offering from botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, one of the great Anishinaabe peoples of the Great Lakes. This slim but powerful volume continues the work of her previous books, including Gathering Moss and the New York Times bestseller Braiding Sweetgrass. Here, she draws from the traditional Anishinaabe economy for her understanding of reciprocity and gift economies, ones where, she writes, “a system of redistribution of wealth [is] based on abundance and the pleasure of sharing.”

Through vivid descriptions of the heartbeats around her—cedar waxwings, bluebirds, neighbors sharing garden-grown zucchini—Kimmerer immerses readers in her kinship and connection to the land. Moving between Western science and her own Potawatomi knowledge, she illustrates an accessible model for building reciprocal relationships with both nonhuman and human life around us through the harvesting and sharing of a fruit known as Amelanchier—or serviceberry, “Saskatoon, Juneberry, Shadbush, Shadblow, Sugarplum, Sarvis.” Kimmerer writes that “ethnobotanists know that the more names a plant has, the greater its cultural importance” and informs us that serviceberries are medicinal fruits that also synchronize “the seasonal rounds of traditional Indigenous people, who move in an annual cycle through their homelands to where the foods are ready.”

Kimmerer breaks down how an extractive economic system like capitalism, which focuses on individualism, competition and exploitation of resources, impacts our spirits; she does so in a language and tone that is generous, even toward the violence of such a system. Indigenous people, she explains, change themselves to suit the land’s changes of harvest, whereas Western methods of farming attempt to make the land suit a population’s desires and consumptions. “We force the food to come to us, at considerable financial and ecological costs,” Kimmerer notes, “rather than following the practice of taking what has been given to us, each in its own time.”

“The land is the source of all goods and services, which are distributed in a kind of gift exchange: one life is given in support of another. The focus is on supporting the good of the people, not only an individual.” The Serviceberry is a kind reminder that we would do well to restore the sovereignty and practices of Indigenous peoples for the present and future of our world.

Botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, returns with a powerful meditation on economics rooted in abundance and sharing.
NonfictionEssays

The Memory Palace

Review by Deborah Mason

A memory palace is a memorization technique used by figures as diverse as Cicero, international memory champions and the late, great Sherlock Holmes. Practitioners visualize placing images representing information they want to recollect in a familiar setting that they can revisit whenever their memory needs a nudge. The Memory Palace: True Stories of the Past, by award-winning podcaster and screenwriter Nate DiMeo, however, is a more intimate and complex edifice than any mnemonic device. Instead of facts and figures, DiMeo’s memory palace is inhabited by the moving true stories that illustrate how human beings throughout history, whether famous, infamous or unknown, felt the same emotions and had the same imperfections that we have and humans will always have.

Like DiMeo’s podcast of the same name, The Memory Palace’s stories—numbering nearly 50 in this volume—are briskly told, varied, unexpected and often paradoxical, giving us a sideways view of human nature. William Mumler, a 19th-century con artist photographer who stumbled upon a technique to make “ghosts” appear behind his subjects, gave genuine comfort to spiritualist Mary Todd Lincoln as she grieved the death of her child. William James Sidis, a boy genius who, at age 11, gave a Harvard lecture on the implications of the fourth dimension, could have been an academic celebrity, but instead sought seclusion to pursue his passion: collecting streetcar transfers. Carla Wallenda, the last surviving child of the founders of the Flying Wallendas high wire troupe, witnessed over several decades the gruesome deaths of her father, husband, cousins, aunt and uncle—but until her death at the age of 85, never felt so alive as when she was on the tightrope.  

DiMeo ordered the stories in no particular way, and he suggests that The Memory Palace could be a “dipping book.” But there’s a benefit to reading it in order: In his final seven stories, he seamlessly interweaves episodes from his family’s lives in a way that illuminates both the individuals chronicled in his “cabinet of curiosities” and the project of the book and podcast as a whole. Readers will feel a shiver of recognition and understanding—making a second or third visit to DiMeo’s memory palace both irresistible and gratifying.

The Memory Palace collects stories from Nate DiMeo’s award-winning podcast about historical people—famous and unknown alike, all breathtakingly human.
NonfictionWomen's HistoryHistory

The Icon and the Idealist

Review by Anne Bartlett

It’s not as if birth control methods weren’t used in the olden days. Condoms, pessaries and douches didn’t magically appear in the late 19th century. But something did change significantly at that time in the United States: The Comstock Act of 1873 effectively criminalized the distribution of contraceptive devices and information about their use. The result was several generations of vituperative battles over a practice that had previously been routine for many, though seldom discussed in public.

At the vanguard of the fight for safe, effective and accessible birth control in the early 20th century were two dedicated activists, Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett. Author Stephanie Gorton tells the story of their interconnected lives in The Icon and the Idealist: Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry That Brought Birth Control to America, a compelling dual biography that has striking parallels to the contemporary abortion debate.

Despite a common goal, the two women loathed each other. Sanger, the “icon” now remembered as the mother of Planned Parenthood, spearheaded a mass movement that broke laws and made questionable compromises. Dennett, the “idealist,” played a more genteel inside game, lobbying Congress for a permanent change to the Comstock Act.

Obviously, they should have coordinated their efforts. But Dennett made a foolish mistake about Sanger early on, and Sanger never forgave her. Gorton adeptly shows how their contrasting backgrounds and personalities fed a grudge that helped shape our current world. The fact that you’ve probably heard of Sanger but not of Dennett tells you who prevailed at the time. But, as Gorton notes, the debate about whether court challenges or statutory change is the wiser long-term strategy has been renewed after the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Gorton doesn’t shy away from the fact that both women allied themselves with the racist and xenophobic eugenics movement, which put “a scientific sheen on white supremacy and ableism.” Dennett and Sanger, she writes, “were intent on disrupting a specific form of oppression and yet were active in perpetuating another.” Wherever readers fall on the impact and morality of the two reformers, after reading Gorton’s fair-minded biography, it’s indisputable that their efforts helped an increasing number of ordinary Americans use birth control more safely and effectively. As Gorton writes, “Dennett and Sanger were instrumental in forcing lawmakers to recognize the kind of world Americans actually lived in, one where fertility control was nearly universally practiced.”

 

The Icon and the Idealist is a compelling, warts-and-all dual biography of the warring leaders of the early 20th-century birth control movement: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett.

The Backyard Bird Chronicles

There is something truly exhilarating about the candor of The Backyard Bird Chronicles, a curated collection of excerpts from novelist Amy Tan’s personal birding journals that sparkles with cleverness and compassion.
NonfictionHistoryBlack HistoryAmerican History

Resist

Review by Natalia Berry

From the Scottsboro Nine to Black Lives Matter, Black youth have positioned themselves at the center of the battle for civil rights for the past 100 years. In Resist: How a Century of Young Black Activists Shaped America, award-winning Nigerian American journalist Rita Omokha makes an unwavering push to put these young Americans’ stories at the forefront of the public record. 

Omokha’s research was spurred partially by the tragic murder of George Floyd and the unprecedented wave of protests around the country. A master of storytelling with a knack for thoughtful investigative journalism, Omokha has created a shining reexamination of history through a Black lens. For example, most of us learn about the Scottsboro Nine—the nine Black teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women in 1931—by reading the outlines of their case and legal proceedings, but how many of us see the ordeal from the Nine’s perspectives, or realize how thousands of students organized for charges to be dropped? It’s here where Omokha excels, providing a ground-level look at how young people were often thrust into organizing for civil rights. “Crucially, the most illuminating insights from history were not solely defined by actions but by the fervent optimism of the young. . . . Young ones who have intentionally learned from history, cautious of its perils, ready with their folded chairs at the table.” 

Omokha draws a clear line from these young people to the Black youth activists of today, exploring how technology has helped resurrect Black liberation movements in the past 20 years. When George Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder for killing Trayvon Martin, three Black women—Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Ayo Tometi—“declared what seemed spiritual, a sacred psalm in three simple words preceded by a hashtag: #BlackLivesMatter.” Resist includes the stories of Darnella Frazier, the woman who videotaped George Floyd’s murder, and Johnetta Elzie, a co-creator of the Mapping Police Violence project, who launched into action after the shooting of Michael Brown. With the help of Omokha’s meticulous reporting, their stories go beyond the headlines and hashtags.

Ultimately, Resist is a must-read for anyone looking to dive into the collected history of Black youth activism and its immense impact on America—and perhaps learn how to take action themselves.

Rita Omokha’s Resist is a must-read for anyone looking to dive into the history of Black youth activism and its immense impact on America.
NonfictionSocial ScienceEnvironment

Power Metal

Review by Harvey Freedenberg

When we bring our mobile phone to life with a tap or settle in behind the wheel of our car, few of us give much thought to the raw materials required to make these sometimes miraculous- seeming devices work. Journalist Vince Beiser has reflected deeply on that subject, and the result, Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape Our Future, is a sharp cautionary tale about the dilemmas facing humanity as we advance deeper into what he calls the Electro-Digital Age, especially as we pursue the essential transition to an energy-renewable future.

Everything comes with a cost, Beiser reminds us, even when it comes to the use of so-called critical metals like lithium, cobalt and nickel. These resources are fundamental to the massive expansion of electric cars and the clean energy sources (namely solar and wind power) that are necessary to combat climate change. What makes that truth problematic, he argues, is that the inevitable price of progress often falls most heavily on the residents of impoverished countries who bear the burden of first extracting these materials and later disposing of the batteries and printed circuit boards, for example, in which they’re used.

Beiser’s journey to this insight takes him from the streets of his hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia, where he tracks an “urban miner” digging through dumpsters for salvageable products like copper wiring, to a lithium mining operation in Chile’s Atacama desert, to a garbage dump in Lagos, Nigeria, where “e-waste scrappers” work in hazardous conditions to recycle electronic products. Power Metal is a concise, but thoroughly researched, work crammed with eye-popping statistics—among them the fact that 75 pounds of ore must be mined to build one four-and-a-half ounce iPhone. It investigates highly touted technologies like sea mining, whose promised benefits may conceal massive environmental risks. 

In the final section of his book, Beiser offers some prescriptions to reduce the planet’s insatiable demand for resources that go beyond costly and energy-intensive recycling, including broadening the scope of right to repair laws, making urban spaces more friendly to bicyclists and deeply questioning our infatuation with the automobile. Whatever one thinks of the practicality of some of his proposals, Beiser has performed a vital service by alerting both policymakers and ordinary citizens to some of the critical choices facing us. 

Power Metal sounds the alarm on the environmental and social consequences of electronic and digital energy—and how the ways we are combating climate change come at a cost.
NonfictionBiography

Ira Gershwin

Review by Roger Bishop

Ira Gershwin has long been regarded as one of the major lyricists of the Great American Songbook. Many of his contributions to Broadway shows, movies and recordings from the 1920s to the 1950s remain popular today. Three of his songs were nominated for Academy Awards but did not win. Today, those songs “The Man that Got Away,” “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” and “Long Ago (and Far Away),” are standards. Among the artists who have released all-Gershwin recordings in recent years are Willie Nelson, Tony Bennett, Diana Krall, Brian Wilson and Michael Feinstein.

The celebrated and much beloved George Gershwin, best known for his “Rhapsody in Blue” and the “folk opera” Porgy and Bess, was Ira’s younger brother and frequent collaborator. George developed a brain tumor and died at age 38. This devastating turn of events not only was a profound personal loss for Ira but also made him the custodian of George’s estate. While continuing to pursue his own career with other composers, he had to contend with long-disputed legal and financial aspects of this inheritance.

In Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words, the first full-length biography of its subject, Michael Owen beautifully captures the life and times of the Gershwin brothers as they crafted musicals for Broadway, including Of Thee I Sing, for which Ira received the Pulitzer Prize in Drama 1932 for his lyrical contribution; George missed out on the award, for there was not a prize for music at this point. Owen writes that Ira “was honored to be recognized but was equally perturbed by the ignorance of the committee that discounted the inventiveness of the music, which allowed his words to come to life.”

So too does Owen’s engaging and insightful portrait illuminate Ira’s life. Ira Gershwin is meticulously researched, thoughtfully drawing from a wide range of sources to take us behind the scenes of the highs and lows of writing for stage and screen. Through Ira’s musings, personal letters, production notes and business correspondence, as well as interviews with those who knew him, we see how this low-key, erudite and keen observer of life and language became not only an outstanding wordsmith, but also the chief archivist of his and George’s musical achievements.

There are numerous theatrical and academic projects inspired by and named for the Gershwins. The best known is the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for American Popular Song. The award, established in 2007, recognizes the important place popular song has in our country. Among the recipients are Paul Simon, Carole King, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell and Garth Brooks. And, of course, the Gershwin songs continue to be heard and enjoyed.

Michael Owen’s thoughtful, engaging biography illuminates the life and work of Ira Gershwin.

Ingrained

In his sensual, vibrant memoir, Ingrained, Callum Robinson shows off his skills as a woodworker and wordsmith.

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